Conventionally, thermal treatment techniques may be used to enhance the surface of a component to improve the wear, corrosion, and fatigue resistance of the component in use. Various thermal treatment techniques have been used including induction hardening and flame hardening. In these processes, a surface is heated and rapidly cooled in a quench process to provide a phase transformation in the material, which thereby provides the enhanced surface properties. In induction hardening, a coil disposed about a component is used along with a high frequency signal to induce the heating of the component. Similarly, a direct heating method, such as a flame heating method, may directly expose a component to a heat source to heat the surface. In these and similar methods, the component is heated to a desired temperature and then rapidly cooled to provide a material change in the surface layer of the component. Typical quenching methods can include directly contacting the surface with a coolant such as water or oil.
However, processes involving heating and quenching can present processing complications. For example, the use of induction hardening and/or flame heating can make it difficult to obtain deep heating in irregularly shaped components. This irregular heating may lead to non-uniform hardening of the treated surface. Further, the rapid quenching of a heated component often causes deformation, distortion, or cracking of the component. Various subsequent processing steps such as straightening and milling may then be required to return the component to the original configuration. These finishing steps may increase the overall processing costs associated with the preparation of the component in addition to increasing the complexity of the processing line needed to produce the component.